Century-old firm plows new ground

STOCKTON - Van Lawrence Jr., owner of Tractor Plow Co. in Stockton, wants to convince the world he's got a better way to till soil for planting.

Reed Fujii

STOCKTON - Van Lawrence Jr., owner of Tractor Plow Co. in Stockton, wants to convince the world he's got a better way to till soil for planting.

His company's Davis disk plow, a round, rotating blade, can quickly turn soil and grind through crop residue in a single pass, reducing costs. The newest models adapt old-style pull-along gangs of disks to modern hydraulic tractor hitches.

Because the blades angle diagonally across the direction of travel, the newest models provide a second gang of blades that can rotate and reverse the angle so the soil is pushed in the same direction on the return trip.